Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained

Your handy reference to each station in the Apollo Mission Control room.

Row three

Up another step sits another row of consoles. The standout station on row three is FLIGHT, where the proverbial buck well and truly stopped.

INCO

Starting again at the left, the first station is INCO, the Instrumentation and Communications Officer. Created as an additional position after Apollo 10, INCO monitored the communications systems for both the Command Module and the Lunar Module, taking these tasks from EECOM and TELMU respectively.

PROCEDURES

To INCO's right is the Organizations and Procedures console—PROCEDURES, or O&P, who made sure that controllers "followed all of our procedures when asking for data or communicating with people, all according to our flight control operations handbook," explained Sy. "As an EECOM," he continued, "if I needed a data printout or a voice playback recorded, I would have to fill out a particular form, putting in the GMT times—from, to—and what the subject was, and that would go through him."

Assistant FLIGHT

The assistant flight director is next, located to the left of the flight director. The assistant FLIGHT duplicated the flight director's duties, monitoring the mission and supplementing the flight director's control. "The Assistant flight Director sat here and did whatever the flight director wanted him to do," joked Sy.

FLIGHT

The flight director, FLIGHT, was the "orchestra leader," as Sy calls it. FLIGHT had ultimate authority to do anything necessary to ensure the crew's safety and the mission's success, in that order of priority. The concept of a central unimpeachable authority presiding over the mission came directly from an incident during the Mercury program where NASA management overruled Chris Kraft on a decision; during Gemini and Apollo, the only way for NASA management to countermand a flight director's orders was to fire him.

During launch, the flight director was one of only two consoles (the other being FDO) with the ability to directly request an abort, which would cause an "ABORT REQUEST" light to begin flashing inside the spacecraft, signaling the spacecraft commander to pull the ABORT handle. Depending on how far into the launch the ABORT came, this would cause any number of drastic actions, including the potential firing of the small Launch Escape System solid-fuel rocket attached to the Apollo capsule, which would yank the capsule off of the rocket and fling the crew roughly away to safety. Fortunately, a launch abort during Apollo was never necessary.

Other than the "ABORT REQUEST" toggle, FLIGHT's console was passive. FLIGHT would monitor displays and communication and coordinate the actions of all of the flight directors in Mission Control and ensure the mission was proceeding according to plan. He also kept detailed documentation of the mission's progress in a set of logbooks. FLIGHT kept continual tabs on all of the flight controllers and the crew, and often had to be paying detailed attention to several different things at once. In times of crisis, FLIGHT would gather together the recommendations of his staff of controllers and then decide on what action to take.

A status report panel, which controllers used to inform the Flight Director of various things.

Photo by Steven Michael

Another notable feature of FLIGHT's console is the event indicator panel above his left screen (panel #3 in the diagram above). This particular panel was hard-wired to show the status of all of the other MOCR flight controller consoles. Most famously, this was used when "going around the horn" before launch or a critical mission event, so that controllers could indicate a "go" if everything was fine or a "no-go," if they saw something anomalous. Sy explained that controllers also used their status indicator panels during a shift change, or when they had to step away from their consoles for a moment. "When we handed over... I would go amber," Sy said, punching the middle button, "and the flight director would say, 'Okay, guys give me an amber when you're on the console and give me a green when you're ready to brief on what happened the prior shift." The colored panel provided an immediately identifiable visual indication of whether or not the controllers were all at the ready. "He would know," said Sy, "that we were ready to go."

Enlarge/ A close-up of Flight Director Gene Kranz's console during Apollo 13. The green event indicator panel just above and left of center is displaying the indicated status of the other MOCR consoles.

FAO

The flight activities officer, FAO, was the timeline manager for the mission. He sat to the right of the flight director and ensured that the preplanned activities for each mission were occurring on schedule. No small amount of spacecraft systems knowledge was necessary, since FAO had to be familiar with the contents of all of the mission checklists and needed to understand the amount of time involved in each step.

NETWORK

The right-most console on the third row is NETWORK, which functioned as the interface with the global network of MSFN data collection and transmission stations which served NASA. Not all of the ground stations were wholly reliable, and NETWORK often had his hands full ensuring that Mission Control was getting the data they needed; a downed computer at a site hundreds or thousands of miles away was NETWORK's problem to fix, and the controller was expected to keep the rest of Mission Control apprised of when things would be online again in the event of a failure. NETWORK's job didn't end there—he also had responsibility for data transmission inside the MCC complex, and even functioned as a kind of first-line technical support for the other consoles. "If we had a problem with a display, we'd talk to him," Sy recalled. "He had a really pressured job."

Row four

The top row of mission control was reserved for management and public relations.

PAO

Public relations played a tremendous part in the space program, and the Public Affairs Office had its own console, PAO, at which sat a controller who functioned as the "voice" of mission control to the public. PAO provided audio narration for the mission, which would be broadcast on radio and television. PAO commentary helped the public understand what they were seeing on their screens during the televised portions of a mission, and also gave news media something on which to base their own commentary.

"You see those guys quite a bit," jokes Sy, referring to the PAO desk, "Because the TV camera was up in that corner."

Flight operations director

The flight operations director desk was next. This desk played host to a senior Manned Spacecraft Center director, who functioned as an interface between Mission Control and space center management. During Apollo, this seat was often manned by Chris Kraft.

NASA HQ

This position acted as a liaison between the Mission Control team and NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. Sy noted that the HQ representative rarely had anything to do, but that there was usually someone there, watching the console.

Department of Defense

The final controller position, all the way to the right, was reserved for a representative from the Department of Defense, usually a general. The Department of Defense's presence in a civilian agency seems unusual at first glance, but the military was responsible for coordinating the recovery of the Gemini and Apollo spacecrafts after splashdown. The decommissioned console today sports a really cool red phone.

Inside the consoles

Not much of the original wiring and circuitry remains in the MOCR consoles today. NASA's original restoration plans for the room included wiring up each console with blinking lights, to give some vibrancy to the space and to "provide visitors with a realistic sense of what the control room resembled in operation during the Apollo Era timeframe." Sadly, there simply wasn't money available to enact that portion of the restoration plans, and though the MOCR 2 consoles today do contain a lot of Apollo panels, they are disconnected husks.

Enlarge/ Looking down into one of the MOCR consoles, filled with shuttle-era hardware. Note "July 1980" stamp at upper right.

Promoted Comments

The concept of a central unimpeachable authority presiding over the mission came directly from an incident during the Mercury program where NASA management overruled Chris Kraft on a decision; during Gemini and Apollo, the only way for NASA management to countermand a flight director's orders was to fire him.

Any details on this incident and the repercussions of it?

I'm still looking. That the incident happened is mentioned in a TON of sources, but I so far haven't found exactly what was said. At some point, I'll just give up and start going through the Mercury mission reports to find it.

I think this is a reference to John Glenn's Mercury flight, where the telemetry erroneously showed that the splash-down bag had inflated behind the heat-shield, threatening to dislodge it during re-entry. There was debate over whether to keep the retro-rocket package on throughout re-entry (it was normally jettisoned after firing), which would fix the heat-shield in place if it was loose, but would produce melted slag that may cause problems.

From Gene Kranz's book:

Quote:

John Glenn’s mission was the turning point in Flight Control and in Kraft’s evolution as a flight director. Walt’s direction rankled Kraft, and Kraft vowed never to be placed in a similar position again.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.